merry christmas, happy new year

As predicted, Christmas was fun, but not at all like Christmas really. On the 26th, Aaron Heckleman came through for part of the day. It was fun to see him and hang out for a bit, even though there wasn’t much to do around here because the entire city was still closed down for Christmas. But he did get to order a beer from McDonalds, which made his day. He was supposed to spend New Year’s Eve with us, but unfortunately for him, that didn’t work out and he was in the middle of nowhere.
My parents flew into Frankfurt on the morning of the 31st. I spent the day walking around with them and again everything in Frankfurt was closed after about 2 pm. We went out to dinner and then they headed to their hotel and left me free to celebrate New Year’s. Dave and I bought some fireworks (which they sell in department stores here) and went down to the river around midnight because we’ve heard that’s the best thing that happens in Frankfurt all year. And that just might be true. There are thousands of people along the banks of the Main, and though there’s no official firework display everybody has their own and there are fireworks everywhere for 45 minutes straight. It’s pure insanity: drunk people everywhere with explosives that they can’t or don’t care to aim away from the other people. There were big party boats on the river and people were shooting fireworks at the boats. I don’t know how people don’t die during this every year, or at the very least get seriously injured. That was all pretty crazy, but the most entertaining part of the night, by far, was mischief with fireworks in Dave’s kitchen after we got back. I have some really good short videos of that, and some day if you’re lucky maybe you’ll get to see them.